On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced flight delays at several major airports due to staffing shortages among air traffic controllers. That followed a statement released earlier in the week, in which the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, along with pilots’ and flight attendants’ unions, said that “air safety environment … is deteriorating by the day.”

We’re not in a position to judge whether the dire warnings of risk are valid, or hyperbole from government workers tired of waiting for their paychecks to show up. Obviously as the shutdown, now in its fifth week, drags on, the strain on various government workers and functions will increase.

The shutdown is clearly starting to have an impact on airport operations. In addition to the delays, Southwest Airlines said Thursday that it will lose up to $15 million this month because of the shutdown’s impact on travel. Delta Air Lines said it will likely lose $25 million.

Just this month, a passenger — inadvertently — made it through security at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson with a gun and boarded a plane bound for Tokyo. The agency’s response: “TSA has determined standard procedures were not followed.”

Audits by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general have uncovered vast amounts of waste. In one case, the TSA spent $160 million on body scanners that failed 96% of the time. A congressional investigation found that the agency dumped $44 million on “explosive trace detectors” that it didn’t need.

The fact is that on any given day, there will be long lines to get through security at some airports. Anyone who has traveled frequently knows this.Yet the press now treats every line at security checkpoints as examples of the grave harm caused by the government shutdown.

The problem with the TSA isn’t the government shutdown, it’s with the TSA itself.

So, Congress, with the blessing of President Bush, nationalized airport screening and gave birth to the Transportation Security Administration, which has seen its budget climb more than 41% since 2005.

The result has been little short of a disaster of poor performance and wasteful spending.

Nearly half — 22,373 — involved “unexcused or excessive absences or tardiness, absence without leave, failure to follow leave procedures.“ More than 6,000 involved “screening and security offenses.” Another 2,703 were for things like sexual misconduct, fighting and abusive language. And 2,562 were for “neglect of duty.”